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LETTERS OF STUART WALCOTT 
AMERICAN AVIATOR 






Class XbO_i 
Book uiiii- 



COPHBIGHT DEPOSm 




STL'AllT WALCOTT IN HIS AEROPLANE 



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LETTERS OF STUART WALCOTT, 

AMERICAN AVIATOR : JULY 4, 

1917, TO DECEMBER 8, 1917 



PKINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS 
PRINCETON 

LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD 
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 

1918 



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■3 



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Copyright, 1918, by 
Princeton Univeksity Press 

PubliBhed April, 1918 
Printed in the United States of America 



APR -5 1918 

©CIA494454 




CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction (from the Piinceton Alumni 

Weekly) 1 

From Princeton to France 7 

Stuart Walcott's Letters 14 

The Final Combat 89 

Stuart Walcott (a biographical note by his 

father) 90 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Stuart Walcott in His , 

Aeroplane Frontispiece 

Stuart Walcott at the 

Front Facing page 38 v' 

War Cross with Palm, 

Awarded in Recognition 

of Walcott's Service .... Facing page 66 • 



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INTRODUCTION 

[From the Princeton Alumni Weekly of January 30, 1918.] 

It is now seven weeks since the dispatches 
from Paris reported that Stuart Walcott 
was attacked by three German airplanes and 
brought down behind the German lines, after he 
himself had brought down a German plane in his 
first combat on December 12, 1917, and that it 
was feared he had been killed; but even now, 
after the lapse of nearly two months, it is not 
definitely known whether his fall proved fatal, 
or whether the earnest hope of his friends that he 
is still alive may be realized. The reports are 
conflicting. A cable message of January 7 said 
that in Germany it was reported that S. Walcott 
had been killed by a fall on December 12 near 
Saint Souplet; but Dr. Walcott received a letter 
on January 19 which holds out some hope that 
the fall was not fatal and that his son may be a 
prisoner in Germany. This letter, dated Decem- 



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ber 17, is from a young aviator named Loughran,* 
who was Stuart Walcott's roommate at the flying 
station. He gives this report of what was told 
to him by an observer and pilot who saw the 
combat : 

"On the 12th of December at 11 :30 a. m., there 
were five pilots to go out on high patrol, includ- 
ing Stuart and myself. But I was prevented 
from going, because of a wrenched ankle. Stuart 
and the other pilots left here at 11:40 a. m. for 
high patrol, which means they are to fly above 
the thousand metres. Two of the pilots had to 
return because of motor trouble, leaving one pilot 
whom Stuart was following. 

"At 12:50 a. m. they ran across a German bi- 
place machine. The French pilot attacked first, 
but had to withdraw because of trouble with his 
machine gun. He reports that the Spad [Stuart 
Walcott's machine], that had been following him, 
he last saw a thousand metres above him, or the 
German. Also that the German had gone back 

* Loughran himself was killed in combat, in February, 1918. 
Attacked within the German lines, by four enemy planes, he suc- 
ceeded in geting back over the French lines, but was there brought 
down. He was buried near Chalons. The Lafayette Escadrille 
attended his funeral. 



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over his lines. The infantry and artillery obser- 
vers report the French pilot's attack and combat. 
And that six minutes later the German returned 
over our lines. And that the Spad that was seen 
flying at a very high altitude, came down and at- 
tacked the German, and succeeded in bringing 
him down in flames. In doing so he had to fly 
quite a way over the German territory. And 
that the Spad had started to return, when three 
German fighting machines were seen diving on 
him, and forcing him down. The Spad was last 
seen doing a nose-dive perpendicular, behind 
their lines. That is all the information I have 
received up to date. 

"This is what makes all the boys think that 
Stuart is alive: 

"A nose-dive perpendicular is used very often 
in combat, but is very dangerous, as it is very 
difficult for one to come out of and yet have their 
motor running; that reason might force him to 
land ; also there was very little chance for him to 
get away from them by flying, as they were 
above, and the only sensible thing to do was to 
land ; and as we were only three days in this sec- 
teur, the French think he might have been mixed 
up as to the direction for home; or that he was 



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slightly wounded and could not turn his machine 
toward the French lines. 

"I have tried every way possible to get infor- 
mation about Stuart. I have sent the numbers 
of his motor and machine to Major S. yros, who 
is trying to trace it through the Red Cross service. 

"One of the French pilots of this escadrille, 
who is a very good friend of your boy, shot down 
a German biplane on 13th of December. The 
machine fell behind our lines. The pilot was 
dead before reaching the ground. But the ob- 
server was only slightly wounded, so the boys of 
that escadrille have asked the commander of the 
group if we could be permitted to go and talk 
to the German, as he may know something about 
the Spad that fell behind his lines the day before. 
We hope to know whether we will be permitted 
to do so or not, tomorrow. 

"It takes two months before we receive the re- 
port from Germany officially. In the meantime 
you will read all sorts of reports in the news- 
papers. But I will cable or have Capt. Peter 
Boal do so, if I get any news that is true. 

"The case of Buckley, the American who fell 
Sept. 5, was reported as being in flames from five 
thousand metres down, and fell in German terri- 



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tory. The observers reported that it landed on 
its back and burned completely. His parents 
were notified of his death; newspapers reported 
the terrible death he died. Well, Sir, on No- 
vember 25 we received a letter from him, saying 
he was enjoying the best of health and was satis- 
fied with his surroundings in the prison camp in 
Germany. 

"So we are all hoping the same for Stuart. 

"I have all Stuart's personal things, and will 
give them to Capt. Boal the first chance I get. 

"Mr. Walcott, it is beyond words for me to 
try and tell you how grieved we all are about 
Stuart, and how great a loss it is to the Escad- 
rille, for him to be away. He was more than 
liked by every member and officer, and gave 
promise of doing great things, was always up in 
his machine trying to better himself in combat 
flying ; there never was a minute that he was idle, 
if it was possible for him to fly. And never a 
more generous and kinder boy. Only the night 
before the patrol he last went out on, he gave me 
every care in the world, got up during the night 
to make sure I was comfortable and to do any- 
thing he could for my ankle. 



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"From one who has been with Stuart through 
all his training, and room-mate on the Front, 
"Yours respectfully, 

"E. J. LOUGHRAN." 

This letter was written before the cable dis- 
patch of January 7, from the International Red 
Cross, which seems to estabhsh definitely the fact 
that Stuart Walcott gave his life in support of 
the endeavor to "make the world safe for de- 
mocracy." In further and final evidence, a letter 
dated February 5, 1918, informed Dr. Walcott 
that the Red Cross agent in Paris had reported 
"Stuart Walcott's grave has been found." An 
accompanying map from Loughran shows that 
the spot where Stuart Walcott fell is on a hill a 
little South of Saint Souplet. 



Benjamin Stuart Walcott was of New Eng- 
land ancestry. His earliest known American 
forbear was Capt. Jonathan Walcott of Salem, 
Mass., 1663-1699. Later, one of Capt. Jona- 
than's descendants, Benjamin Stuart Walcott, 
served in a Rhode Island regiment during the 
Revolutionary War. On his mother's side two 
ancestors served in the Continental Army and in 
the Revolutionary War. 



FROM PRINCETON TO FRANCE 

Stuart Walcott was a senior at Princeton 
in the winter of 1916-17. In view of his ap- 
proaching graduation in the spring his father 
wrote to him that he had best begin to think about 
what he was to do after graduation in order that 
he might get on an independent basis as soon as 
practicable. In response under date of January 
7, 1917, he wrote: 

"You spoke of my being independent after I 
graduate in the spring. If I go to Europe, as 
I want to, to drive an ambulance or in the aero- 
plane I will be doing a man's work and shall be 
doing enough to support myself. If the work is 
unpaid, it is merely because it is charitable work 
and as such is given freely. If you want to pay 
my way, I will consider it not as dependence on 
you, father, but as a partnership that may help 
the Allies and their cause. I will furnish my ser- 
vices and you the funds to make my services 
available. If not, I will be willing to invest the 

7 



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small amount of capital which has accumulated in 
my name. I have been thinking of this work in 
Europe for over a year now, and am still very 
strong for it. I don't know what the effect will 
be on myself, but if it will be of service to others, 
I think that it is something I ought to do." 

Being assured that the expenses would be pro- 
vided for, he then began an investigation as to 
the best method of procedure to obtain training 
as an aviator. In a letter dated January 26 he 
said: 

"Many, many thanks for sending me the book 
on the French Flying Corps by Winslow. I read 
half of it the night that it came and stayed up 
late last night to finish it. He gives a very 
straight, interesting and apparently not exagger- 
ated account of the work over there, which has 
made it somewhat clearer to me, just what it is 
that I want to get into. Now I am even more 
anxious than I was before to join the service over 
there. The more that I think about it and the 
more that I hear of it, the more desirous I am of 
getting into the Flying Corps. If a man hke 
Winslow with a wife and daughter dependent on 



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him is willing to take the risk involved, I see no 
reason why I should not. 

"You mention the Ambulance service in your 
last note. I have thought of that quite a little 
and would definitely prefer the aviation. The 
ambulance is worth while, I think, in that it gives 
one an opportunity to be of great service to hu- 
manity, but not so much so as the other. There 
will be a number of my classmates who will en- 
list in the American Ambulance this spring, but 
the air service appeals to me." 

He then made arrangements with the Ameri- 
can representatives of the Lafayette Escadrille 
to go to France on the completion of his college 
year. On January 29 he wrote: 

"I will get a physical examination in a few 
days. In regard to getting the training over 
here first, I do not think that it would be worth 
while. The instruction over there would be first 
hand, bright, for a definite purpose and on the 
whole superior to what I could get here. I could 
also be picking up the language and the hang of 
the country at the same time." 

On February 24 he received word that his 



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papers presented with his apphcation for admit- 
tance to the Franco-American Flying Corps as- 
sured him on their face of a welcome when he 
presented himself in Paris. He was informed 
that if he utilized his spare time in availing him- 
self of any and every opportunity to familiarize 
himself with flying, it would shorten his stay in 
the Student Aviators School in France. On 
March 26 he wrote: 

"I haven't been able to find out anything defi- 
nite about the school at Mineola. As yet, no 
change has been announced to my knowledge, in 
reference to hastening up the course in event of 
the coming of war. Over a hundred men have 
left college [Princeton] already to start training 
for the Mosquito Fleet, and the rest of them are 
drilling every afternoon. Wliat do you think of 
the advisability of stopping college and going to 
some aviation school? Considering that it takes 
several months to become at all useful as an avi- 
ator and that war is practically inevitable now, 
I think it would be wise to get started right 
away." 

And again, on April 3: 



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"I saw in the morning paper that the Ameri- 
can fliers in Finance would be transferred to 
American registry immediately after the decla- 
ration of war. When you next see General 
Squier, I wish that you would sound him on the 
probability of a force being sent to France to 
learn to fly according to French methods. That 
is the one thing above all others that I want to 
get into. If there is any chance of that I do not 
want to get involved in anything else. . . . 

"It is quite certain that seniors who leave col- 
lege now, to go into military work, will receive 
their degrees. I would not object to losing the 
work as it is not my present intention to keep on 
with theoretical chemistry and that is what I am 
devoting my time to this spring. From the 
standpoint of education alone, I think that my 
time could be more profitably spent in the study 
of aviation." 

Leave was granted by the University, and on 
April 6 Stuart Walcott was appointed a spe- 
cial assistant to Mr. Sidney D. Waldon, Inspec- 
tor of Aeroplanes and Aeroplane Motors, Signal 
Service at Large. He immediately reported to 
Mr. Waldon and worked with him through 



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April. May first he went to Newport News, 
Virginia. May 2 he reported: 

"My first trip up was this afternoon with Vic- 
tor Carlstrom. We were out 16 minutes and 
chmbed 3,500 feet. It was all very simple getting 
up there — a little wind and noise and some 
bumps and pockets in the air — a glorious view of 
the Harbor. Then we started to come down. 
First, I saw the earth directly below through the 
planes on the left. Then the horizon made a sud- 
den wild lurch and Newport News appeared di- 
rectly below on my right. This continued for a 
little while and then we started down at an angle 
of about 30 degrees to the perpendicular, turn- 
ing as we went. I later learned that Carlstrom 
had executed a few steep banks or sharp turns 
and then spiralled down. It ended with a very 
pretty landing, following with a series of banks 
to check speed. Flying from my first impression 
is a very fascinating game and the one I want to 
stay with for a while. I have signed up for 100 
minutes in the air. While this hundred minutes 
will not make me a flier by any means I think it 
is well worth the while in that it gives me a little 
element of certainty in going abroad. I will 
know if all goes well that I am not unable to fly." 



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The next day he wrote : 

"Two flights this morning, 25 minutes in toto. 
The greatest sport I ever had. Wonderful work. 
I did most of the work after we got up a safe 
distance." 

Having obtained a certificate of 100 minutes 
flight and passed the necessary physical examina- 
tions, he left for France, arriving at Bordeaux 
May 31, and soon reported at Avord for training. 



STUART WALCOTT'S LETTERS 



AVORD, 

July 4, 1917. 
Dear H : 

. . . My work here is going well, although 
slowly. Those in my class ought to get out by 
October if nothing goes wrong. There are some 
150 Americans learning to fly now in France, 
besides the ones the Government may have sent 
over — more than a hundred at this one school, 
and the oddest combination I've ever been thrown 
with: chauffeurs, second-story men, ex-college 
athletes, racing drivers, salesmen, young bums of 
leisure, a colored prize fighter, ex-Foreign Le- 
gionnaires, ball players, millionaires and tramps. 
Not too good a crowd according to most stand- 
ards, but the worst bums may make the best 
aviators. There's plenty of need for all of them. 

There are lots of Frenchmen here also and a 
big crowd of Russians, mostly happy youngsters 

14 



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having a very good time. They're always in a 
hurry to get up in the air and are continually 
breaking machines and their necks. The Ameri- 
cans have an endless streak of luck in being able 
to fall out of the air and collect themselves un- 
injured from amidst a pile of kindling wood 
which was the machine. As yet I haven't done 
any piloting in the air, so can't talk very wisely 
about the glories and thrills of slipping through 
the ephemeral clouds. All I have learned is that 
almost any kind of a dub can be a pilot, but that 
there aren't a lot of very good ones. The idea is 
to get enough practice to become a good one be- 
fore arguing with the elusive Boche at a high 
altitude. 

It looks over here as though there would be 
about two years more of war, judging from what 
most people say. It is to be hoped that after 
twelve to eighteen months we will be able to take 
France's place at the front, for she deserves to 
be relieved and will have to be. Even now, 
France is almost spent; it will be England and 
the United States who will finish the war. This 
war is a terrible thing, but for America it is an 
opportunity as well. I am glad that we have at 
last come into it and that it will be no half-way 



16 ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 

fight that we must put up. The Canadians have 
been about the best regiments in the war. Why 
shouldn't America be as good? . . . 

Stuart. 



II 

EscoLE d' Aviation Militaire 
AvoRD, Cher, France. 
Friday, July 13, 1917. 

You see it's Friday, the thirteenth, my lucky 
day, and I'm happy because the work is going 
well. First, I'll tell you about a smash I had a 
week or so ago. 

The roller or Rouleur class which I smashed in 
has the same machine as those that fly with a 45 
P motor. Only it is throttled down, and we are 
supposed to keep it on the ground — just about 
ready to fly, but not quite getting up — a speed 
of about 30 m.p.h. When there is the slightest 
wind we can not roll, because the wind turns the 
tail around and swings the machine in a circle — 
a wooden horse — cheval de hois. I rode about 
the end of the list Saturday — and the wind had 
come up as the day got on. Work stops at 8 :30 
a. m. always because there's too much wind. My 
first sortie or trip went O.K. with a considerable 
breeze on the tail, but on the second there was 

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18 ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 

too much wind and after I got going pretty fast 
— around she went. The wind caught under the 
inside wing and up it went. Smash went the 
outside wheel, and a crackle of busting wood. 
All the front framework of wood that holds the 
motor was smashed — a pretty bad break. The 
monitor was a bit mad and talked to me a bit in 
French. 

The next morning I was called in to see the 
chief of the Bleriot school, Lt. de Chavannes, a 
very nice officer. He told me that my monitor 
was not satisfied with me — that he had told me 
to do something (cut the motor when the ma- 
chine started to turn) three separate times, and 
that each time I had intentionally disobeyed, that 
if anything like that happened again I would be 
radiated (discharged from the school). That 
was quite the first I had ever heard of it and I 
was so mad at the monitor that I could have 
kicked him in the head. I tried to explain to the 
Lieutenant but he never heard a word, so I just 
gurgled with wrath and didn't do anything. But 
yesterday we got another monitor who is a dif- 
ferent sort. 

The class after rouleur is decolle — it is the 
same machine, but one gets off the ground about 



ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 19 

a metre or two, then slacks up on the motor and 
settles to the earth. It is strictly forbidden to 
decolle in the rouleur class. This morning I had 
a sortie in the rouleur and all of a sudden noticed 
that I was in the air a bit — managed to keep it 
straight and get out of the air without smashing. 
The monitor said nothing so I decolleed on all 
the sorties. When I got out the monitor ex- 
plained that it was strictly forbidden to go off the 
ground in the rouleur class, that I shouldn't have 
done it, and then asked me if I would like to go 
up to the other class. Whereupon consenting, I 
am now in the decolle class, leaving sixteen 
rather peeved Americans who arrived in the 
rouleur the same time I did, who can perform in 
the rouleur quite as well as I can and who will 
remain in the rouleur for some time yet. They've 
no grudge against me, however, as it was only a 
streak of luck on my part. Later in the morning 
I had some sorties in the decolleur and got up 
two or three metres. The wind was too strong, 
so my trips were a bit rough, but nothing was 
damaged — so hurrah for Friday, the thirteenth. 



Ill 

July 17, 1917. 
The work has been going very well since last I 
wrote you, which was only two or three days ago. 
I told you about at last leaving the blessed roller ; 
I never was so relieved in my life. The first 
evening in the decolle class, I was requisitioned 
to turn tails and the morning after there was too 
much wind to work. The decolle is the one 
where you go up two or three metres and settle 
down by cutting speed. The first time I had 
three sorties in the wind, bounced around a lot, 
but did no damage. The next time was first 
thing in the morning. Two metres up on the 
first, four or five on the fifth — strictly against 
orders. I even had to pique — point the machine 
toward the ground — a little, which is not at all 
comme il faut in the decolle. But these French- 
men are funny chaps — sometimes they will get 
terribly angry and punish one for disobeying, 
and again they will be tickled to death with it. 
If I had smashed while doing more than I was 

20 



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told to, there would have been a lot of trouble; 
as it was, no objection — and the monitor per- 
sonally conducted me to the pique class with a 
very nice recommendation. 

Now there are two pique classes: one with a 
piste about a quarter of a mile long, in which one 
is supposed to do little more than decolle, get up 
about five metres and pique un tout petit peu — 
hardly at all. After comes the advanced pique 
with a much longer piste on which one can get 
up 100 metres (300 feet). On my first sortie in 
the pique, I was told to roll on the ground all the 
way, so continuing my policy, did a low decolle. 
Next I was supposed to do a two metre decolle, 
so went up ten and piqued. Had ten sorties in 
that class one morning, getting as high as I 
could — about twenty metres — and went to the ad- 
vanced pique that night — last night. Four sor- 
ties there last night with a machine with a poor 
motor, so didn't get up over a hundred feet. 

And this morning I did my first real aviating. 
There was a bit of wind blowing, so the monitor, 
Mr. Moses, only let a Lieutenant and me go up, 
as we had gone better than the others last night. 
First it was a bit rainy and always bumpy as the 
deuce — air puffs and pockets which require the 



a ABOVE THE ERENXH LINES 

entire c omMAiie f oree of the wing warp and rud- 
der to ovaeGme. Mt last sortie was decidedly 
acth^ Tbe wind had developed into a bit of a 
bieeae nincii is to a Bleriot like a roogfa sea to a 
row bosL Two or three times I got a puff that 
lipped tiie nurinne "wav orer — ^put the controls 
orer as far as I could and waited. It Sffiwd a 
miniite bef oie siie strai^itaied. Hie izwUe was 
iliat tiie mariiifK* was rlmAing and tiieref ore not 
goDg veiy fast If I had piqued,, it would have 
eonected quicker. I had no trouble at all in 
p*^i^ipg the landing. Hopping out of the ma- 
c^ooe, I saw the head monitor mshin g orer to 
31j. Moses on the doolde, shouting volubly in 
Frendi and boatnig hant seventy. I gathered 
lliat he had been watdung my manoeuvres, ex- 
pecting wmirihing to fall every instant, and that 
he streniKNisly objected to Moses' letting me go 
irp. Work stopped there for the morning, and it 
was very fully explained to me what the trouble 
was. If I have some sorties there tonight, I go 
to Tomr de Pist€ (^Flying Field) in the morning. 
I may be on Xieuport in two weeks. 

I am now beginning to see the advantages of 
the Bleriot training. There is a great deal of 
preliminary work on or near the ground. In all 



ABOVE THE FIIE>'CH LINES 23 

other aviation training, such as at Newport Xews, 
90 per cent of the work is in makiTig landings — in 
piqueing down, redressing at the proper moment 
and making gradual connections with the earth. 
I haven't made a really bad landing yet and the 
reason is that I have been in a machine so much 
on and near the ground, that I have sort of de- 
veloped a sense or feel of it, and almost auto- 
matically redress correctly, and settle easily. 
Also I can tell pretty closely what is flying speed 
because of the work on the rollers. It's the same 
way with all the other students only I know it 
now from my own experience. 

And this morning I began to realize that my 
hundred minutes at Xewport Xews was invalu- 
able. I not only found out some of the tricks of 
a master hand (Carlstrom) but also developed a 
bit of confidence in the air, and air sense, with- 
out which I coidd have got into trouble this morn- 
ing. My bumpy ride this morning is absolutely 
invaluable. I'll probably never have so much 
trouble in the air again, because a fast machine 
or even a Bleriot with a good motor, would hard- 
ly have noticed these puffs. It was a bit risky, 
I guess, or the head monitor would not have been 
worried, but now that it's over, I know a lot 
more. 



IV 

August 11, 1917. 
Dear * : 

You have certainly developed into a wonder- 
ful correspondent. Honest-to-goodness, a letter 
you started my way about a month ago was quite 
the most satisfactory and amusing thing I've re- 
ceived since I've been over here. Based on prac- 
tically no material, yet it was alive with interest, 
every line. There's nothing like a finishing 
school education. If I thought that you could 
knit, I would immediately appoint you as my 
marraine (godmother), for it's quite possible for 
one person to have more than one soldier and I 
am but a soldier of the second class in the French 
Army. As I understand it, the chief duty of a 
marraine is to write letters — you've started that 
in good style — and to knit wool scarfs, which the 
devoted soldier hands to a French peasant wo- 
man to unravel and make a pair of socks out 
of. . . . 

* One of his school friends, 

24. 



ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 25 

Many Yale boys have wandered in upon us of 
late, Alan Winslow, Wally Winter, George 
Mosely, and others. Also Chester Bassett, late 
of Washington and Harvard University, who I 
believe has the good fortune to be acquainted 
with you, a very recommendable young man. 
They tell me that Cord Meyer is aviating at some 
camp nearby, but, not having any machines, they 
have to spend their time touring the country in 
a high powered motor. 

Had a long and gossipy letter from Pat the 
other day, containing details of many weddings 

and engagements, even unto young 

. All my classmates are doing the same 



stunt. How about being original and waiting 
until the war is over and seeing who of the com- 
petitors are left? I quite expect to be, but it's 
luck I'm trusting to; there's a lot of war left in 
the nations of Europe. One never can tell; I 
may come home on permission in a French uni- 
form with a wing on my collar. . . . When the 
American Air Service is a little further along, it 
may be that we will be taken over from the 
French Army. 

I finished up in one division of the school the 
other day and passed to another for brevet, the 



26 ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 

tests for a military aviator. I sort of have the 
impression that I wrote you a few weeks ago 
about it, but not being sure, run the risk of repe- 
tition, which, if any, I hope you will excuse. 
This epistle is being written out at the piste (fly- 
ing field), waiting for the wind to drop enough 
to fly, and with me seated amidst a bunch of Rus- 
sians, so if there are any superfluous "iskis" or 
"ovitches" in this, you will understand why. The 
Russians are great fliers; in fact they know so 
much about it that they never listen to their moni- 
tors and as a result break more machines than all 
the other pupils combined. A month ago five of 
them went to the next school for acrobacy and in 
a week every one of them had killed himself. I 
pulled a bit of the same Russian stuff in the 
spiral class of the Bleriot. All the work is solo — 
never a flight double command so one has to get 
instructions on the ground and follow them in 
the air. 

I used my head and senses in performing my 
first spiral, instead of shutting my eyes, doing 
what I had been told and trusting to God. The 
result was that I made one more turn than I ex- 
pected to and that quite perpendicular, not at all 
comme il faut in a Bleriot. Why something did 



ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 27 

not break has been the wonder of the Bleriot 
school. But nothing did and we got down all 
right. Another time I planted a cuckoo on her 
nose, which is not at all encouraged by the moni- 
tors. 'Tis quite a trick to balance a monoplane 
on its nose on the ground, but I did it — quite 
vertical she lay, with me in the middle struggling 
with the safety belt and wondering which way it 
was going to fall. My final appearance in the 
Bleriot school was likewise spectacular. The 
left wing hit a hole in the air which the right one 
didn't. Naturally things tipped; then they 
wouldn't straighten and the only thing to do was 
to dive to the low side. I did, but forgot to shut 
off the motor. A very steep and fast spiral re- 
sulted in which I lost 500 feet in a half -turn in 
about two seconds, I think, all with the motor 
going to beat the cars. I must have been travel- 
ling at many hundreds of miles an hour. Once 
again nothing broke, but it was no fault of mine 
that it didn't. . . . 

Sincerely, 

Stuart. 



V 

August 25, 1917. 
I started for my altitude test three days ago. 
The requirement is one hour above 2,000 metres. 
I got to 1,950 metres and one cylinder refused to 
fire, so I was forced to come down. The next 
morning I tried again, got to 900 metres and the 
magneto ceased to function, thereby stopping all 
progress. I glided toward home, but didn't have 
quite the height to make the piste^ so had to land 
in a nearby field, just dodging a potato patch. 
A flock of curious sheep came around and care- 
fully examined the machine, getting considerably 
mixed up in the wires of the open tail construc- 
tion and leaving considerable wool thereon. 
When the mechanics eventually got the motor 
going, I started off, didn't get quite in the air 
before the motor went bad and then I ran into 
a bean patch, gathering about a bushel of beans 
with the same tail wires. Yesterday morning I 
tried again, climbed to 2,000 in fourteen minutes 
and to 3,500 metres (11,500 feet) in forty 

28 



ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 29 

minutes. I went up through some light clouds 
and when I got to 3,500, the top of my recording 
barograph, more clouds had formed and I was 
practically shut off from the earth, nothing but a 
beautiful sea of clouds below me, a very beautiful 
sight. One other machine was in sight, far below 
me, but on top of the clouds. Not wanting to get 
lost I came down through the clouds and stayed 
out my hour just above 2,000 and below the 
clouds, where the air was very much churned up, 
keeping me very busy. Just as soon as the time 
was up I came down with a pair of very chilled 
feet, making the 2,000 metres in five minutes to 
the ground. No work since then on account of 
bad weather. 

This morning I attended my first Catholic 
funeral, that of the commandant of the school 
who was the victim of a mid-air collision, a very 
unusual accident. The other machine got down 
safely though badly smashed. Everybody in 
camp attended the funeral in the chapel of the 
Artillery Camp next door. I understood none 
of the service, but the music by a tenor and a 
'cello was excellent. While the cortege was go- 
ing down the hill to the cemetery, a Nieuport 
circled overhead very low for half an hour or 



30 ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 

more and dropped a wreath. It was a very im- 
pressive ceremony. 

I expect to start on triangle and petit voyage 
in a few days. When they are done, I will be a 
breveted flier in the French Army. Then comes 
perfectionne work and acrobacy, so it will be quite 
a while yet for me. 



VI 

August 31, 1917. 



.*. 



Dear — 

Here it is almost September and I am still a 
dog-goned eleve pilote. Verily, every time I 
think of how the time passes along without re- 
sults, I go wild. My complaint is caused by the 
west wind, which has blown about twenty-five 
days during the month of August and seems 
likely to continue well on into September. The 
only variety is an occasional storm. For the past 
two weeks I've been waiting to start my voyages, 
two trips to a town forty miles away and back 
and two other triangular trips about 180 miles 
long each. When they are done, one becomes a 
pilote eleve; and there's a great if subtle differ- 
ence when the words are reversed. An eleve 
pilote is the scum of the earth, looked down on 
by mechanics, pilots, monitors, and everyone else ; 
a pilote eleve can wear wings on his collar and is 
as good as any one else. He is permitted to fly 

* One of his school friends. 

31 



32 ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 

in rough weather, to take chances and is not in 
so much danger of getting radiated if he gets in 
trouble. The proper thing to do on a triangle or 
petit voyage is to have something bust directly 
over a nice chateau ; make a skilful landing on the 
front lawn under the eyes of the admiring house- 
hold and then be an enforced guest for a few 
days until one is rescued by a truck and mechan- 
ics. One has to be very careful where the panne 
de moteur catches him lest he have to make his 
landing in a lake or on a forest, which is apt to 
be a bit awkward. One chap, an American, has 
been out on a triangle for two weeks, staying at 
some country place, and there are four others at 
another school near a big town waiting for 
weather to return. Reports give us to believe 
they are having a much better time there than we 
are here. 

Between here and the point for the petit voy- 
age — a little bit off the route, is the big future 
American aviation camp and also an Artillery 
camp. There are quite a bunch of fellows there, 
Quentin Roosevelt, Cord Meyer, etc., I think. 
Every American that has left on his voyages in 
the last month has stopped there against all or- 
ders and been bawled out by the monitor. One 



ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 33 

has to keep a recording barometer or altimeter 
machine, a barograph, during the voyages, which 
indicates all stops. One chap came back home 
the other day with a barometer record showing 
beyond the shadow of a doubt that he had made a 
stop of about fifteen minutes en route. The 
monitor saw it, said, ''Alors, all you Americans 
stop off there, I don't like it." Then the chap 
tried to explain how he had had a panne and 
come down in a field out in the country some- 
where, fixed the motor and come on home. He 
almost got away with it, but the monitor hap- 
pened to snook around a bit and noticed on the 
tail very clearly written a good Anglo-Saxon 
name, the name of the town, and the date — quite 
indisputable evidence. I fully expect to have a 
panne there myself before long. 

By the way, to declare a short pause in my 
chronicle of aviation, how about all those "letters 
that are to follow"? If you try to tell me how 
good you are to your Belgian soldier, I refuse to 
believe a word until you treat me in the same 
way. And I also refuse to accept anyone as a 
marraine (isn't that what you call these fairy 
godmother persons one is supposed to correspond 
with during the war and marry afterward? 



34 ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 

How inconsiderate some of them are, to take 
three or four soldiers, just assuming that not 
more than one will survive ; however, they may be 
wise to have more than one iron in the fire. But 
my parenthesis grows apace.) — I say I refuse a 
marraine until she approves her ability. But 
let me see again. Does said marraine have to be 
a complete stranger? It seems to me that is cus- 
tomary, and also usually they are of different 
nationalities. All of the foregoing weak line will 
be interpreted as a mere plea for that other let- 
ter. I've never made this "absence makes the 

heart grow fonder" stuff at all. Even 

has given me up; I remain to her only another 
of the forgotten conquests (?) of the dead past. 

• • • 

This odd person, Bassett, wandered in all 
dressed up like a patch of blue sky and I just 
had to let you know he was here. With absolute 
confidence in each other's integrity, we put our 
loving messages side by each. By the way, he is 
a good scout, don't you think? I have gotten to 
like him immensely since he has been here. I 
never had a better time in my life than one eve- 
ning in Paris with Chet. However quiet the 
party, he is the life of it. 



ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 35 

It must be that I take my weekly shave — in 
cold, cold water, with a dull, dull razor. Oh, 
happy thought! Tell the father and brothers 

hello from me. Also tell to drop me a 

line of what he's doing and when he's coming 
over. 

Stuart. 



VII 

September 1, 1917. 
The wild man in the Nieuport was out again 
this morning giving some one a joy ride. There 
is a long straight stretch of road in front of our 
piste and he came down that several times, a 
nasty puffy wind blowing which bothered him 
not at all, flying only two or three feet off the 
groimd. In front of the piste is a telephone wire 
crossing the road. He came along the road 100 
miles an hour until almost on top of the wire and 
jumped up just in time to clear it by a few feet — 
really beautiful work. He goes all over the sur- 
rounding country flying low, hopping over trees 
and houses, sometimes turning up sideways to 
slip between two trees a bit too close together to 
fly through; sometimes dragging a wing through 
the space between a couple of hangars or doing 
vertical virages just in front of them. It doesn't 
seem possible that any man can be so much a part 
of his machine, can be so consistently accurate 

36 



ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 37 

that he never misses. For this chap, Lumiere, 
has never had a smash. . . . 

A chap named Loughran started off on one of 
his brevet voyages a few days before I got ready 
for brevet. He got quite a ways along, ran into 
a storm, went above it, got caught in a cloud, 
kept on for quite a long way being drifted by a 
strong wind, then came down through the clouds 
and found that they were only 400 feet above the 
ground. After a while he found a place to land 
and came down safely. He went to a farmhouse, 
got his machine guarded and tied down. In the 
meantime word had spread over the countiyside 
that an aviator had come down there and the en- 
tire population came out to look him over. A 
grand equipage drove up with a Count who lived 
in a nearby chateau. He insisted that Eddie 
come to the chateau and accept their hospitality. 
There the fortunate Ed stayed five days; the 
Countess talked EngHsh, and also some house 
guests. He hadn't brought a trunk so borrowed 
razor, etc., from the Count ; went down to see the 
machine every day in the baronial barouche. 
Whenever he went to the little town in the vicin- 
ity all the kids followed him around the streets 
and when at last he left, he was presented with a 



38 ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 

multitude of bouquets and had to kiss each and 
every donor. He brought back pictures of the 
chateau — a dehghtful looking old place — and nu- 
merous addresses. 




STUART WALCOTT AT THE FRONT 



VIII 

September 4, 1917. 
At last the two weeks of wind and rain has 
ceased and now it is perfect weather — a bit of a 
breeze and lots of sun for the last two days. 
Yesterday morning there weren't enough ma- 
chines to go around so I did not work, making 
the eighth consecutive day I hadn't stepped in a 
machine. Last evening I at last and with much 
rejoicing started out on my "maiden voyage" to 
another school about 60 kilometres away (37.5 
miles) . It was delightfully easy — nothing to do 
but climb two or three thousand feet and just sit 
there and watch the country unfold, comparing 
the maplike surface of the earth spread out below 
with the map in the machine. In good weather it 
is very easy to follow, spot roads, towns, woods, 
rivers and bridges. Railroad tracks get lost at 
high altitudes and are harder to find anyway. 
One has to keep an eye open for a place to land 
within gliding distance in case of a panne always, 
but the coimtry is so flat and so much cultivated 

39 



40 ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 

around here that it is absurdly simple. I en- 
deavored always to keep some pleasant looking 
house or chateau in range in case of trouble, for 
the French are proverbially hospitable to aviators 
en panne (lying to, descending). 

Coming back yesterday evening, the sun was 
pretty low and the air absolutely calm, nothing 
but the drone of the motor and the wind ; the only 
movements necessary an occasional sHght pres- 
sure on the joy stick to one side or the other to 
keep the proper direction. I came very nearly 
going to sleep, it was so peaceful up there; sev- 
eral times closed my eyes and swayed a bit. As 
a matter of fact one is perfectly safe at that alti- 
tude — anything over a thousand feet — because 
the machine, at least this particular type, won't 
get into any position from which one cannot get 
it out within 200 metres at most. But neverthe- 
less I haven't tried any impromptu falls as yet. 

This morning I repeated the same identical 
performance, because for some reason we have to 
do two petits voyages^ and had much the same 
kind of a time as yesterday. On the way home 
one cylinder quit its job and threw oil instead, 
covering me from head to foot and clouding up 
my goggles so I had to wipe them off about every 



ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 41 

minute. When I got back the mechanics decided 
that that motor had died of old age and would 
have to be repaired, so I am again without a 
machine. Have watched a beautiful afternoon 
pass by from the barracks when without my luck 
I'd be working. But with a machine and wea- 
ther, I can be finished tomorrow; two triangles 
to do about 200 kilometres (125 miles) each and 
I can do one in the morning and the other in the 
evening and then I'm breveted. Perhaps by day 
after tomorrow I'll start perfectionne on Nieu- 
port. I hope so. 



IX 

September 9, 1917. 

Since my last to Father, I have had some very 
interesting times. First, I finished my brevet 
with very httle excitement, made all my voyages 
and only got lost a little bit once. Then I saw 
two machines on the ground in a field, made a 
rather dramatic spiral and steeply banked descent 
amidst a crowd of villagers and got away with it ; 
then found that the machines belonged to two 
monitors who were bringing them from Paris and 
had effected a panne de chateau. Being asked 
what I was doing, I fortunately found a spark 
plug on the burn and got that repaired. The 
rest of it was very easy, a bit of flying in the rain 
which stings the face a bit, but is not bad other- 
wise. 

Since I have been on the Nieuport. There are 
three sizes of machines on which one is trained, 
starting with the larger double command and go- 
ing to the smallest. At Pau, we get another even 
smaller, about as big as half-a-minute. Four 

4>2 



ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 43 

times I went out without a ride — bad weather, 
crowded class and busted machines, the same old 
story. Then last night I had my first rides with 
a monitor who is rather oldish, crabbed and new 
at his job, a brand new aviator. As you know, 
when an airplane takes a turn, it does not remain 
horizontal but banks up: comine fa (if you can 
interpret that illustration — it shows signs of re- 
markable imaginative power) — alors, one banks 
to take a turn and uses the rudder only a very 
little because the machine turns along when 
banked. There is a sort of falling-out feeling the 
first few times until one becomes a part of the 
machine. 

To get back to the story, this monitor does not 
like to bank his machine and sort of sidles round 
the corners, keeping it quite flat and almost slip- 
ping out to the outside of the turn. I have done 
many fool things in a machine and made many 
mistakes, but never have I been so scared in any- 
thing in my life as when riding with this monitor. 
A monitor is supposed to let the pupil drive as 
much as he is able, but this bird never let me 
make a move, and when we got through told me 
I was too brutal. I was never madder in my life 
and cursed nice American cuss words all the way 



44 ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 

home. There's a fifteen kilo ride in a seatless 
tractor back to camp to improve a bad humor. 

Well, this morning I saw some more rides im- 
pending and didn't like it, so asked the chef de 
piste to put me with another monitor. He had 
to know why and I registered my kick, which 
practically said that the first monitor didn't know 
his business and couldn't drive, that I was scared 
to ride with him. The chef was a bit sarcastic 
and told me to take two rides with another moni- 
tor to show how I could make a virage. I did it 
the way I've been accustomed to, made a fairly 
short turn; when we got down, the monitor said 
''Epatant" (Am. ''stunning") or something like 
that to the chef. The chef had meanwhile com- 
municated my complaint to the first monitor and 
he was the maddest man I ever saw. Demanded 
what ''Ce type la" (indicating me) wanted, said 
the virages I had just made were dangerously 
banked (the monitor I was with didn't mind, 
though) and then all three started arguing at 
once at me and I spelled all the French I knew. 
About that time I thought of what you had just 
told me in a letter about trusting in Latin, which 
advice and remarks I have come to agree with 
very much (my admiration for the French has 



ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 45 

waxed less daily), and here I realized that I had 
very successfully made a fool out of a man who 
was supposed to be my teacher, and he fully re- 
sented it. 

Then, of all things, the lieutenant, without fur- 
ther remarks, said I was to continue with my 
first monitor. My heart sank into my feet. I 
had visions of staying in that class without rides 
or with only rides and fights for months; I rode 
no more this morning and what was my delight 
to find this evening that my bewhiskered pal had 
left on permission. I got another monitor, a fine 
one who put his hands on the side of the machine 
and let me do everything with a bit of assistance 
on the landing, which is different from what I've 
been doing on the Caudron. Seven rides and a 
finish — the twenty-three-metre tomorrow morn- 
ing. I wasn't very good, but got by. 



X 



September 14, 1917. 
Things for me are going all right. Have made 
progress on the Nieuport since last I wrote and 
will fly alone soon. As regards the U. S. Army, 
things are at a standstill until I get to Paris 
which will be a week or so. I hope to go to the 
front in a French escadrille and in an American 
uniform. Some say it can be done ; some that it 
cannot. It sounds so sensible that I am afraid 
there must be some regulation against it. 



46 



XI 

September 27, 1917. 
Since last I wrote a regular letter, considerable 
has taken place. First, I am now at Pau, having 
finished up Avord. Have sent postcards to 
Father right along to keep track of movements. 
After brevet was over, I did not take the custo- 
mary permission of forty-eight hours, but went 
straight to work on Nieuport, D. C. (double 
command). One cannot learn a great deal rid- 
ing with an instructor — only about enough to 
keep from smashing in landing, because one 
never knows when the instructor is messing with 
the controls, when it's one's self. There are five 
kinds of Nieuports — differing mainly in size, the 
smaller being faster and more agile in the air, 
better adapted to eccentric flying. They are 28, 
23, 18, 15, 13 (the baby Nieuport). At Avord 
I had about a week of D. C. on 28 and 23 (the 
nimabers refer to size of wings) with several days 
of no work. Then some days on 23 alone and 
finally on 18 alone. 

47 



48 ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 

The landings are a bit different from those of 
the machines I had been flying as they are faster 
and the machines are quite nose-heavy. In the 
air the nose-heavy feature makes them "fly them- 
selves" — that is, according to the speed of the 
motor the machine will rise and climb or pique 
and descend, with never a touch from the pilot. 
If the weather is not very bad, the Nieuport will 
correct itself automatically from all displace- 
ments. But in landing the nose-heavy feature 
causes a great many capotages. If the landing 
isn't done about right with the tail low — over she 
goes on her nose or all the way onto her back. It 
is a very common occurrence and has become al- 
most a joke. When a pupil capotes, everybody 
kids him — no one hurries over to see if he is hurt, 
not at all; he climbs out from under, usually 
cursing, and in ten minutes the truck is out to 
salvage the wreck. 

It is astoimding the way smashes are taken as 
a matter of course. Yesterday one chap in land- 
ing hit another machine, demolishing both but 
not touching either pilot. Being worth some 
$15,000 or $25,000, but no one seemed to worry 
— it's very much a matter of course. The moni- 
tor was a little peeved because he will be short of 



ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 49 

machines for a few days, but that was all. I've 
seen as many as ten machines flat on their backs 
or with tails high in the air, on one field at the 
same time. For myself, I haven't capoted or 
busted any wood since the Bleriot days. But 
I'm knocking on the wooden table now. On sev- 
eral occasions it has been only luck that saved me, 
as I've made many rotten landings. 

Well, to get back to the diary. After finish- 
ing at Avord, I waited around for two days to 
get papers fixed up, requested and obtained per- 
mission and then decided not to use it and left 
straight for Pau after fond farewells to the 
friends I've been with for three and a half 
months. Looking back, I didn't have such a bad 
time at Avord after all, though I did get terribly 
tired of the hving conditions. 

My trip to Pau I put down to experience. I 
discovered one schedule not to travel by in fu- 
ture. Leaving Avord at 2:15 I got to Bourges 
at 2:45 and found that the train left at 7:29. 
Fortunately, there was another chap from the 
school on the train, Arthur Bluthenthal, an old 
Princeton football star, whom I have gotten to 
know quite well, so we managed to waste the af- 
ternoon together. At 7 : 29 I started another half 



50 ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 

hour's journey, at the end of which the timetable 
said that the train for Bordeaux left at 10:30 
(this is all P. M.). 

At this town there were some American engi- 
neers, so I embraced the fellow countrymen in a 
strange land. Finished up a not very gay eve- 
ning by attending the movies, a most odd insti- 
tution. Clouds of tobacco smoke obscured the 
screen, and most of the action was around the 
bar at one side of the hall. Nobody was drunk, 
but nearly every one was drinking and very gay. 
This was merely Saturday night in a small town 
of the Provinces — not in gay Paree. At 10:15 
I got in a first class compartment and tried to 
find a comfortable position in which to sleep. At 
2:15 A. M. I had mussed up my clothes con- 
siderably, lost my temper and not slept a wink. 
Then we had to change again. The rest of the 
morning I sat opposite an American officer, a 
queer old fogey, and we tried to kid each other 
into thinking we were sleeping, with no success. 
Arrived at Bordeaux at 7 A. M., and found that 
the train for Pau left immediately, so I missed 
out on breakfast, too — Oh, it was a hectic trip. 
My idea of a very unpleasant occupation is that 
of a travelhng salesman in France. 



XII 

October 22, 1917. 



.*. 



Ah, — 

Once more I take my pen in hand to lay at 
your feet the burdens of an overwrought (how is 
that word spelled?) mind, said burdens being 
caused by a most unpleasant captain. Just be- 
cause I was in Paris for a day and a half without 
a permission, he handed me eight days of jail, 
and to-day for nothing at all he hauled me out in 
front of the entire division and got quite angered 
when I told him in extremely broken French that 
I hadn't imderstood a word. But as the jail 
doesn't mean anything and doesn't have to be 
served, I am not worrying very much. The af- 
ternoon is misty and there isn't a chance of fly- 
ing, so he takes particular care that nobody leave 
the piste though there is absolutely nothing to do 
there, no chance to get warm or comfortable. 
Which at least gives me a perfect alibi for poor 
penmanship as I'm sitting in a machine and quite 
uncomfortable. 

* One of his school friends. 

51 



52 ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 

Thoughtless creature, so much Hke the rest of 
your sex, why did you not tell me where Albert 
was to be over here, or what he was going to do, 
or what service he was in, or at least that he was 
in France? I cleverly deduced the latter from 
your letter, but did not know where to find him. 
When I got your letter I was at Pau, not far 
from Bordeaux (Didn't I write you or postal- 
card you from there?). Afterward at Paris, I 
talked to a few very dressed up ensigns with 
wings on them somewhere (Walker is the only 

name I remember) , and they told me that 

was near Bordeaux and in the same group with 
themselves. So if, etc., I might have gone to see 
the Big Boy. 

Yesterday I went to see Billy and another 
classmate in an artillery camp the other side of 
Paris. They are officers of the U. S. A. and live 
as such, which incites in me much envy as I am 
still a mere corporal of France and treated with 
no more than my due — not quite as much I some- 
times think. That was the expedition that 
brought the jail. Lots and lots of people are 
getting over here now. I've seen Heyliger 
Church and Kelly Craig who are about to be- 
come aviators somewhere. Porter Guest just be- 



ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 63 

came breveted (that is, a licensed pilot) and was 
considerably seen in Paris shortly after — no end 
of college friends are over here and even an oc- 
casional American girl is seen in Paris. No 
friends as yet. 

Your letter — I asked at Morgan Harjes about 

Miss and found that she is at the front in 

a hospital, so I can't very well find her in Paris. 
I'm sorry as I would very much have liked to. 
What one might call permanent people are very 
nice to know in Paris. I don't know anything 

about the front yet, but if I'm near Miss 's 

hospital, will try to get acquainted. 

What you said about and his going, I 

can pretty well appreciate. There isn't a thing 
in the world to worry us unmarried and very in- 
dependent young men over here. If something 
happens to us, it will bother you all back home a 
great deal more than us. It's very, very true 
that women have the heaviest and worst part of 
war. I had to write a letter the other day to the 
mother of a pal over here who shot himself when 
out of his head. A fine pilot and an exception- 
ally charming fellow, how I pity his poor mother. 
It's almost unbelievable the number of women 
one sees in black here in France. Thank God, it 



\ ^'^ 



54 ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 

can never become that bad at home, for the war 
will never get so close to us as it has to the 
French. 

I haven't the inspiration to compose an imagin- 
ative aeronautic thriller to-day about the experi- 
ences of a boy aviator. Since last writing, have 
finished Nieuport at Avord, went to Pau and 
there did acrobacy, came here to Plessis-Belle- 
ville and started Spad, now await assignment to 
an escadrille which ought to come within a week. 
Haven't broken any wood since Bleriot days, 
but have been a bit more rational and done about 
average good work. The preliminary training is 
over — combat training doesn't amount to any- 
thing till we get to the front. I'll be on a mono- 
place machine surely. So in my next you can ex- 
pect to hear mighty tales of combating the Boche 
at a high altitude. I'm beginning to hear that 
it's nothing but a lot of routine work, few com- 
bats and pretty soon a frightful bore: I refuse 
to beHeve it and hang on to romance for all I'm 
worth. 

Give my regards to a whole lot of people and 
tell them I haven't quite given up all hope of a 
letter though almost. My friends as a group are 
not very strong on letter writing. There are only 



ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 55 

a very few shining exceptions like yourself and 
verily they do make of me the heart glad. 

But enough of this, 'tis bootless, so I sign my- 
self, 

Thine as of yore, 

Stuart. 



XIII 

Escadrille Spa-84, 
Secteur Postal 181, 
Par A. C. M.— Paris. 

November 1, 1917. 
Well, I'm here — in sight of the front at last. 
To date I haven't been out there yet and won't 
for a few days more as they take lots of care of 
new pilots and don't feed them to the Boche right 
away. Probably day after tomorrow the Ueu- 
tenant in command will take me out to show me 
around the lines and after that I'll take my place 
in patrols with the others. The work is exclu- 
sively patrolling, establishing as it were a bar- 
rage against German machines and preventing 
as far as possible any incursions of the French 
lines. As the big attack is over, there is compara- 
tively little activity. Sometimes one goes for a 
whole patrol without being fired on and without 
seeing an enemy machine anywhere near the lines. 
During the three days I've been here, the group 
has accounted for several Boches without any 

56 



ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 67 

losses whatever. Young Bridgeman of the La- 
fayette Escadrille had a bullet through his fuse- 
lage just in front of his chest, but suffered no 
damage except from fright. 

There are several escadrilles in the group, a 
groupe de combat — it is called — all have Spads 
which makes it very nice. The Lafayette, 124, 
is of our group and have adjoining barracks, 
which makes it very nice (I seem to repeat) for 
us lone Americans in French escadrilles. We 
drop in there far too often and the first few nights 
I used the bed of the famous Bill Thaw's room- 
mate, away on permission. Did I write you that 
one morning he brought in Whiskey to wake me 
up, and my eye no sooner opened than my head 
was buried under the covers. Whiskey is a pet — 
a very large lion cub, which has unfortunately 
outgrown its utility as a pet and was sent yester- 
day, with its running mate. Soda, to the Zoo at 
Paris, to be a regular lion. 

They are a very odd crowd — the members of 
the Lafayette Escadrille, a few nice ones and a 
bunch of rather roughnecks. Their conversation 
is an eye opener for a new arrival. Mostly about 
Paris, permissions, and the rue de Braye, but oc- 
casionally about work and that is interesting. 



58 ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 

Nonchalant doesn't express it. When Bridgy 
got shot up as mentioned above, they all kidded 
the life out of him and when he got the Croix de 
Guerre, they had him almost in tears — just be- 
cause he's the kiddable kind. 

But in talking about the work — for instance, 
Jim Hall : "I piqued on him with full motor and 
got so darn close to him that when I wanted to 
open fire I was so scared of running into him that 
I had to yank out of the way and so never fired 
a single shot." Or Luf berry just mentions in 
passing that he got another Boche this morning, 

but those observer people won't give him 

credit for it. He has fourteen official now and 
probably twice as many more never allowed him. 
Some days ago during the attack he had seven 
fights in one day, brought down six of them and 
got credit for one. Which must be discouraging. 



XIV 

November 5, 1917. 



Well *: 

Here I find myself writing to you without 
waiting for the usual two or three months to 
elapse. Do you realize that it was over five and 
a half months ago that I left my native land? It 
doesn't seem near so long to me. Just at present 
I have about thirteen hours a day to write, read 
the Washington Star and New York Times, eat 
an occasional meal (we only get two over here, 
worse luck) , build fires in the stove and stroll for 
exercise. The rest of the time is devoted to sleep. 
A terribly hard life that of an aviator on the 
western front! No appels (meaning roll calls), 
discipline or inspections. Only, if there should 
happen to be a good day, one might be wanted to 
fly a bit. So far (I have only been out here a 
week) we have had perfectly ideal aviators* 
weather — nice low misty clouds about 300 or 
400 feet up, which quite prevent aerial activity 

* One of his school friends. 

59 



60 ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 

and yet one is not bothered by mud or depressed 
by rain. In the morning, one awakes, pokes his 
head out the window, says "What lo ! more luck, 
a nice light hrouillard/' and closes the window 
for a few hours more of sleep. Really I have 
done more resting the past week than most peo- 
ple do in a lifetime ! 

To get statistical, I finished up at Pau (from 
where I sent to you a letter, n' est-ce-pasl) a 
month ago, and then spent two very unpleasant 
weeks at Plessis-Belleville near Paris, at the big 
14 depot for the front, waiting to be sent to an esca- 
drille, with nothing to do but a little desultory 
flying, nurse the system, food, weather, lodging, 
disciphne, etc. Eventually my turn came and, 
with another American, I was dispatched to Esc. 
SPA 84, where we arrived after the usual delay 
passing through Paris. That's one nice thing 
about this country : all roads lead to Paris. Sent 
from one place to another, it is a safe wager that 
one goes via Paris, and always takes forty-eight 
hours there and gets permission for it if he can. 
There are a few Frenchmen there still, but on the 
streets one sees almost entirely American, British 
or British Colonial officers — occasionally a 
French aviator and of course clouds of sweet and 



ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 61 

innocent young things — yes? Nearly all of my 
classmates are over here and get to Paris every 
once in a while, so all I have to do is to sit at the 
Cafe de le Paix and if I wait long enough, some 
one I know will surely come along. 

Well, to get back on the track, we eventually 
found ourselves members of le-dit Esc. SPA 84 
— one esc. of a groupe de chasse, which means that 
we will have patrolling work to do mainly and 
not protection of observation or photo machines 
— which they tell me, is fortunate. Also we have 
good machines — the best there are, which might 
not have happened had we been sent to another 
type of escadrille — purely good fortune. The 
much advertised Lafayette Esc. No. 124, is a 
member of the same group, is located near us and 
does the same work, which makes it much pleas- 
anter for lone Americans. We use their stove 
and tea of an afternoon quite freely as our quar- 
ters are new and not fixed up. But say, when we 
do get going, everybody will be in to see us. 
We'll have a cosy, beautifully wallpapered room 
clustering around a stove. . . . The men of 124 
are a rather good crowd — not much different 
from any crowd of Americans, a bit rough but 
most of it affected because they're away from 



62 ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 

home, very hospitable, rather daredevil or hard- 
hearted (whichever you wish to call it — the way 
they talk about each other's narrow escapes, com- 
ing falls, the mistakes or misfortunes of departed 
brothers, and there have been several) and very 
mixed, centering around Lieutenant Bill Thaw, 
of the French Army, who impresses me as being 
very much of a leader and an unusually fine type. 
There is one tough nut from a Middle Western 
Siwash-like college, who was probably still un- 
graduated at 27, and a quiet, innocent looking 
kid who seems to have just got out of prep school ; 
of course, the tough guy tears the little one. 
Then there are a couple of old Legionnaires — 
rather superior and terribly tired of war, quite 
unenthusiastic, but I dare say congenial when 
one gets under their hide or fills it full of booze. 
And Jim Hall, the author chap — quiet, reserved, 
almost simple in his lack of affectation and boyish 
in his enthusiasm. (Gad, how he wants to get 
his Boche and he almost thinks he did the other 
day, but it wasn't verified. He followed him 
down from 1,500 to 200 metres, shooting all the 
time, and thinks he must have brought him 
down). . . . 

Did I mention above that I am at present in 



ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 63 

the status, practically, of a non-flying member? 
On arriving at the front, one is not rushed 
straightway to the cannon's mouth, but rather 
allowed to get acclimated a bit first, to have a few 
preliminary voyages to look around, etc. Dur- 
ing my week here, there has been little flying and 
I haven't even seen the front, only heard the guns 
occasionally. Of my three flights, two were just 
short tours de champs. But the other: never in 
my wildest Bleriot days did I do a wilder one. 
Coming from Pau where I had tried some stunts, 
I thought I was a bit of an acrobat, second only 
to Navarre, Guynemer and a few others. So ar- 
riving at a safe height, I started to go through 
the repertoire. First came a loop which got 
around to the vertical point — a quarter turn and 
then slipped, ending in a vertical corkscrew or 
climbing barrel turn or whatever you want to 
call it — then losing momentimi and just natur- 
ally tumbhng. I didn't know what was going on 
— only that it wasn't right; they told me after- 
ward. After that came the renversements and 
vertical turns, etc., and not a thing came out. 
Lost — I got lost thirty times and had to hunt 
all around to see where I was. Nothing went 
right and I kept getting madder and madder and 



64 ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 

poorer and poorer. They were all laughing down 
below and wondering what was going on up there. 
Eventually the party ended — one of the old 
pilots told me that that one flight equalled about 
thirty hours over the lines and the commander 
advised against a repetition of the performance, 
and so I went and lay down. Two hours later I 
began to feel that perhaps I could stand on my 
feet again; did you ever have mal-de-mer? 

So now I really ought to begin to learn some- 
thing, having acquired that all essential first 
knowledge of ignorance, which all good students 
should have. And in the meantime perhaps I 
shall go and combat the Wily Hun. Said W. 
Hun need not worry about my bothering him if 
he doesn't keep fooling around under my nose till 
I'm ashamed not to go after him. I'm not blood- 
thirsty a bit, especially till I learn to fly, and the 
lack of combats isn't going to keep me awake 
nights for a while yet. 

But the bunkmate seems to have gone to bed; 
it's almost ten — a most unprecedented hour for 
me to be up, so the end approaches. Kind re- 
membrances as usual — use your discretion and 
don't forget that long tale of "Washington So- 



ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 65 

cial Tid-Bits" you spoke of — gossip if you pre- 
fer. . . . 

As ever, 
Stuart. 



The Next Day. 
Addenda : 

Your letter on just arriving home has been 
with me some time and truly brought joy to my 
heart in this desolate land. ( The "desolate" seems 
to fit in though not applying to the land in ques- 
tion at all.) . . . 

Chester Snow is aviating under the auspices 
of the U. S. Government. I last heard from him 
in a postal written on the last stop of the last 
triangle of his brevet, so he should be through 
training before much longer. The other Chester, 
Bassett, is still at Avord, so I can not deliver 
your note to him. . . . 

Your other question referred to the army I am 
in, and is easily answered by saying that the 
U.S.A. has as yet done nothing but talk about 
taking us over. "Us" now refers to upward of 
200 Americans, I think, either in French esca- 
drilles or well advanced in the French schools. 
Constantly all summer, we have been "going to 
be transferred in two weeks." 



66 ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 

Another quiet, non-flying, slightly rainy day 
has passed. This isn't perhaps the most ideal 
spot in the world for a winter resort, from 
the point of view of comforts, but, consider- 
ing the ease of conscience because one is not in 
the position to be called emhusque, it is really not 
half bad. It's starting to rain again rather hard- 
er; I wonder if the roof will keep out water? 

Yours, etc., 

B. S. W. 




WAR CROSS WITH PA1..M, AWARDED 

IX RECOGXITIOX OF WALCOTT'S 

SERVICES 



XV 

November 10, 1917. 
Evening. 

You knov7 November in France. I've been 
here almost two weeks now and am^still a Ven- 
trainement, that is, I haven't started in to do any 
regular work fei. Only five times have I been 
able to fly in two weeks. But I've got my own 
machine, and mechanic, everything is in order 
and I've been assigned to a patrol the last two 
mornings when it rained. Tomorrow again at 
8:50 with four others — patrol for one hour and 
fifty minutes at about 15,000 feet, back and forth 
over our sector, sometimes over our own lines, 
sometimes in Bochie. I'm getting very impa- 
tient to get started. In what few flights I've 
had, I've been working on acrobacy a bit and am 
gradually learning a few simple things; twice I 
stayed up a little too long and had to lie down a 
few hours afterward, almost seasick. 

I like Spa 84 very much indeed. The French- 
men there are much more regular fellahs than 
most of those I've been with in the schools. 

67 



68 ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 

Wertheimer, a sergeant, is a sort of informal 
and unadmitted chief of the sous-officiers. It is 
he that speaks EngHsh and has helped us a lot in 
getting settled, etc. Very much of a gentleman 
he is, and understands a bit Anglo-Saxon cus- 
toms and eccentricities, always gay and an inde- 
fatigable worker. We have all been arranging 
the one big room of our barracks — dining room, 
reading room, and probably eventually American 
bar. The walls are covered with green cloth, 
green paper (of two different shades and neither 
quite the same as the cloth), red cloth (on top as 
a sort of frieze) and red paper. The ceiling is 
done in white cloth to keep in heat and lighten the 
room. A monumental task it has been, especially 
as materials are hard to get and expensive. 
Wertem (as Wertheimer is called) and Deborte 
have done most of the work. Deborte is also 
chef.de popote, which means housekeeper, and a 
very efficient man. For four francs per day we 
are fed amazingly well, especially when one real- 
izes that we are near the front in a country which 
has had three years of war. Deborte hasn't the 
pleasantest manner in the world at times, but 
usually is very agreeable, willing to tell me things 
about flying or the escadrille, always ready to 



ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 69 

work, and a dependable man in the air. And 
Verber who rooms with Wertem, — he speaks a 
httle Enghsh, has a great deal of trouble under- 
standing it, but is picking up. Wears a monocle 
all the time because he's got a bum eye, carries a 
stick and has an extremely eccentric appearance, 
but withal is very agreeable and a very valuable 
man. He has the habit of taking long trips all 
alone far into Germany just to see what is going 
on. Pinot is the name of the little roly-poly chap 
everybody calls Bul-Bul, who used to be a me- 
chanic and now is a very good, merry pilot. He 
has a great pension toward Pinard, is violently 
but not at all objectionably non-aristocratic, is 
forever laughing or kidding some one, walks on 
his hands to amuse people, and is the delight of 
all the mecanos. Demeuldre is a very quiet sort 
of school boy type who has been a pilot of bi- 
planes and reconnaissance machines for a long 
time. He came to the escadrille recently with a 
record of two Boches as pilot of a biplane (that 
is, his machine gun man did the shooting and they 
both get credit), and a few days ago brought 
down a German in flames, his first as pilote de 
chasse. There are two others away on permis- 
sion, whom I don't know yet. 



XVI 

Somewhere in France, 

November 13, 1917. 
Dear Father : 

Campbell was in the Lafayette Escadrille and 
they are a member of the same group as Spa 84, 
so I have asked them about him. He was on a 
patrol with another chap, they attacked some 
Boches and when it was over the other chap was 
alone. Campbell was brought down in German 
territory and so reported missing. I believe that 
the chap he was with has seen and talked to 
Campbell's father or some close relative since. 
Another chap named Bulkley was brought down 
in similar circumstances about the first of Sep- 
tember. Ten days ago, word was received from 
the American Embassy that he had communi- 
cated with them, a prisoner in Germany. There 
are many similar cases, where men ])rought down 
with crippled machines or wounded escape de- 
struction by a miracle. The only sure thing is 
when a machine goes down in flames or is seen to 
lose a wing or two. 

70 



ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 71 

For instance, there are two officers in the group 
who are in the best of health and daily working. 
Several months ago, they were on patrol to- 
gether, collided in the air. One cut the tail rig- 
ging completely off the other and they separated, 
one without a tail and the other with various 
parts of a tail mixed among the cables and struts 
of one side of his machine. They both landed in 
France, one on his wheels followed by a capotage 
or somersault turnover, the other quite complete- 
ly upside down. Then a term in the hospital and 
back they are again. Kenneth Marr, an Ameri- 
can, had the commands of both his tail controls 
cut in a combat, the rudder and elevator, leaving 
him nothing but the aileron — the lateral balance 
control and the motor. He landed with only a 
skinned nose for casualties and got a decoration 
for it. 

Another chap in an attack on captive balloons, 
drachens, dove for something like 10,000 feet 
vertically and with full motor on, thereby gain- 
ing considerable speed as you can imagine. He 
came right on top of the balloon, shot and to keep 
from hitting it, yanked as roughly as he could, 
flattening out his dive in the merest fraction of a 
second. Imagine the strain on the machine 1 



72 ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 

When he got home, all the wires had several 
inches sag in them; the metal connections of the 
cables in the struts and wood of the wings had bit 
into the wood enough to give the sag. 

Machines are built to stand immense pressure 
on the under side of the wings. In some acro- 
batic manoeuvres I was trying the other day, I 
made mistakes and caused the machine to stall 
and then fall in such a way that the full weight 
was supported by the upper surface — by the 
wires which in most machines are supposed mere- 
ly to support the weight of the wings when the 
machine is on the ground. Yes, the Spad is a 
well built machine, the nearest thing to perfection 
in point of strength, speed and climbing power 
I've seen yet. Of course it's heavy and that's 
why they put 150-230 HP in them. The other 
school, that of a light machine with a light motor 
— depending for its success on lack of weight 
rather than excess of power, may supplant the 
heavier machine in time — I can't tell. So, as 
anyone who knows has said right along, there is 
a long way to go in the development of the J N 
or even the little tri-plane, before American built 
planes get to the front. Of the bombing game, 
I don't know anything at all. 



ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 73 

Yesterday there was a revue here in honor of 
Guynemer, and decorations for the pilots of the 
group who had won them. Three Americans re- 
ceived the Croix de Guerre — members of the La- 
fayette Escadrille. Lufberry, the American ace, 
carried the American flag presented to the esca- 
drille by Mrs. McAdoo and the employees of the 
Treasury Department — besides the two aviation 
emblems of France. He was called to receive 
his decoration "for having in the course of one 
day held seven combats, descended one German 
plane in flames, and forced five others to land be- 
hind their lines" (which means that he is officially 
credited with one, his thirteenth, and that the 
other five though probably brought down, do not 
count for him because there were not the neces- 
sary witnesses required by the French regula- 
tion) . Being the bearer of the flag, he was a very 
worried man to know what to do with the flag 
when he should go up to get his medal, till one 
of the fellows in 124 (the Lafayette) came to 
his rescue. 

For a military revue it was decidedly amusing. 
Aviators are not very military. The chief of one 
of the escadrilles was commissioned to command 
the mechanics who are plain soldiers with rifles 



74 ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 

and steel helmets for the occasion. He is a bit 
of a clown and amused the entire gathering, kid- 
ding with the officers. The pilots of each of the 
five escadrilles were in more or less formation, 
most of them with hands in their pockets for it 
was chilly, and presenting a mixture of uniforms 
unparalleled in its heterogeneity. Eveiy branch 
of the service represented and endless personal 
ideas in dress. Because of the occasion, repos has 
been granted to the entire group for the after- 
noon, another group taking over om* patrols. So 
that after the revue, everyone had the afternoon 
to waste — a sunny day which is quite unusual this 
month. Within a half hour, every machine that 
was in working order was in the air — forming 
into groups and then off for the lines, just look- 
ing for trouble — a voluntary patrol they call it. 
Which opened my ej^es a bit to the spirit in the 
French service after three years of war. 

Word from Paris that those Americans in the 
French service who have demanded their release 
to join the U. S. A. have obtained that release — 
which probably means that all we wait for now 
... is the commissions. 

This afternoon I took another trip with one of 
the old pilots to look over the sector. We stayed 



ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 75 

over France and didn't get into trouble although 
there were lots of Boches around. Hope to get 
really started soon. . . . An amusing one this 
morning: two pilots from the group were on 
patrol and attacked a single German about two 
kilometres behind the German lines. They com- 
pletely outmanoeuvred him, he got cold feet and 
started for the French lines, giving himself up. 
The funniest part about it is that the machine 
gun of one of the attackers was janmied and he 
couldn't possibly have hurt the Boche — just had 
the nerve to stay and throw a bluff. They came 
back to camp just before dark this evening, one 
of them flying the German machine and the other 
guarding him in a Spad. The machine is an 
Albatross monoplane (biplane) — finished in 
silver with big black crosses on the wings and tail 
— a really beautiful thing. It flew around camp 
for several minutes before landing. It is the sec- 
ond machine that has been scared down since I've 
been out here. 



XVII 

At the Front, 
Somewhere in France, 

November 17, 1917. 
At present things are hopelessly slow on ac- 
count of bad weather, so I have a good deal of 
time to write and naught to write of. I still am 
waiting for my baptism of active service which is 
assigned for each day and held up on account of 
fog, low clouds or rain. In the afternoon it usu- 
ally lifts a little, not enough to fly over the lines, 
but sufficient to permit a little vol df entrainement, 
a practice flight aroimd the field. I've been tak- 
ing every chance to learn to fly, practicing re- 
versements, vertically banked turns, 90° nose 
dives, etc. Two day ago, we had a very interest- 
ing mimic combat in the air. The Boche ma- 
chine, which has been captured, and a Spad, both 
driven by very clever pilots, manoeuvred for po- 
sition during fifteen or twenty minutes at 1,000 
feet or less, back and forth over the field, doing 
almost every possible thing in the air — changing 

76 



ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 77 

direction with incredible rapidity, diving, climb- 
ing, wing slipping, upside down dives — every- 
thing under the sun. 

Two of them were at it again today in two 
Spads, just manoeuvring. What a lot there is to 
learn! When I got through acrobacy at Pau, I 
had the impression that that kind of stuff was rel- 
atively easy — ^now I know different. For the 
present I'm working on the system of try one 
thing at a time — get that fairly well and then 
commence another. And small doses — ten or 
fifteen minutes for an acrobatic flight, not more, 
because one can easily get dangerously sick in a 
very short time. Not that there is any particular 
peril in getting ill in the air, only it's beastly un- 
comfortable ! 



XVIII 

At the Front — Somewhere in France. 
November 30, 1917. 

The rumor at the Lafayette Escadrille this 
evening is that they have been at last transferred. 
Of course they had similar rumors many times 
before. For myself I am becoming rather indif- 
ferent, very well satisfied here except for weather, 
and getting what I came over here for. 

Father mentioned something about a monitor's 
job (after I had had experience at the front). 
My present inclination is decidedly against the 
idea. There is no job in the world I like less to 
think of and there are plenty of people who want 
to get comfortably settled in the rear, so let them, 
say I, and may they enjoy it. It is not a very 
pleasant job. As a retirement after a period of 
service at the front it is another matter. Of all 
people I can think of I have the smallest right to 
an embusque job at present — so here I hope to 
stay. Whether I fly with an American or French 
uniform I don't care very much at the present 

78 



ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 79 

moment. I had rather get a Boche than any com- 
mission in the army, but' one cannot always tell 
about the future ; perhaps after a few good scares 
I'll be ready to jump at a monitor's job. 



XIX 

At the Fkont, 
December 1, 1917. 

I tried to give you all some idea of the strength 
of a Spad in a letter a while ago. At home peo- 
ple speak of a factor of safety, meaning the num- 
ber of times stronger the machine is than is neces- 
sary for plain flying. The Spad is made so that 
a man can't bust it no matter what he does in the 
air — dive as far and as fast as he can and stop as 
brutally as he can — ^it stands the racket. Of 
course, motors do stop and if it happens over a 
mountain range — well, that's just hard luck. 

Have had a few patrols since last I wrote. 
One at a high height, 4,000-4,500 metres, consid- 
erably above the clouds which almost shut out the 
ground below, wonderfully beautiful sight but 
beastly cold, and a couple when the clouds were 
low and solid. The patrol stays at just the 
height of the clouds, hiding in them and slipping 
out again to look around. If it gets below, the 
enemy anti-aircraft guns pepper it whenever 

80 



ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 81 

near the lines and at a low altitude that is rather 
awkward — so the patrol shows itself as little as 
possible. 

It's lots of sport to try to keep with the patrol : 
be behind the chief of patrol, see him disappear 
and then bump into a fog bank, a low-hanging 
cloud and not see a darn thing. Then dive down 
out of the cloud wondering whether the other 
guy is right underneath or not; shoot out of the 
cloud and see him maybe 500 yards away going 
at right angles. Then bank up and turn around 
fast and give her the gear — full speed to catch 
up and so on. See a Boche regulating artillery 
fire, start to manoeuvre into range and zip! he's 
out of sight in the clouds and the next you see he 
is beating it far back of his lines. Not very dan- 
gerous this weather, but lots of fun. 



XX 

December 3rd, 1917. 



*. 



Dear — 

Thanks for the merr\', mern' uishes for the 
gay Xmas season and I'll trj' to remember them 
when the day comes along. Smidays and holi- 
days are not rerj' much noticed here at the front, 
except that on Smiday the mechanics all get full 
of pinard and song and devilment — the pinard 
(meaning cheap red ink used by the French in 
place of drinking water) is of course responsible 
for the two latter. In the villages, the entire male 
population hkewise drinks much wine and every- 
one — man. woman, cliild, dog, and domestic ani- 
mal, parades the streets — dressed up all hke a 
picture book (apph-ing mostly to women and 
children). Occasionally they cross the sidewalk, 
but tlie middle of the street is the place to walk. 

One Smiday, I went to church, the first time 
since last Easter, I think, to attend the mass 
given for the departed brethren of the escadrille. 

* One of his school friends. 

8^ 



ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 83 

The chapel is in a httle town a few miles from our 
camp. Along in the Middle Ages or anyway a 
long time ago, there was a beautiful cathedral 
there — ^now the town is insignificantly small. 
The front of the cathedral is standing almost in 
its entirety and the walls for a little way back, 
dwindling down into glorious ruins and finally 
tumbled masses of rock and stray pillars. Where 
the back wall once stood, there now runs a little 
brook (I almost called it bubbling, but it hap- 
pens to be an unusually dead and not over-clean 
little stream) . The chapel is a place about as big 
as a minute, snuggling in beside the big front 
wall of the ancient cathedral. The service was 
meaningless to me — what wasn't Latin was 
French. I followed the fellow in front of me 
and didn't miss it once on the getting up and 
down ( fortunately, militaires don't have to kneel, 
I suppose because they appreciate the fact that 
most of them wear breeches made by French 
tailors). 

But they fooled me once. What must have 
been the village belle {what a village!) passed a 
little button bag aifair in baby blue ribbon, 
and gathered up the shekels. I dropped mine 
in and horror — here comes the young sister with 



84 ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 

an identical bag and asks for more and I was un- 
prepared and had to turn her down amidst my 
blushes. I thought she was working on the other 
side of the house as we used to do at evening ser- 
vice and to this day I don't know why they took 
up two collections though it has been explained 
to me three times in French. 

Have had some very pleasant trips over the 
German border (present, not 1914), have 
watched a few Archies bursting at a safe distance 
away and seen some specks which were Boche 
planes, but am not ready to write a book yet. 
Yesterday morning we had the first sortie at 6 :45 
daylight. A solid bank of clouds over the camp 
here at 2,000 metres. The lines are parallel to a 
river and a few kilometres north. The edge of 
the cloud bank was over the river, sharp as if cut 
by a knife and all Germany cloudless. We 
slipped out from under it and back on top just 
in time to see the sun get over the horizon — al- 
most as far away as Rheims, which we just can- 
not see. The river and canal were just silver 
ribbons on a black cloth stretching for miles due 
east. Under us we could make out the ground 
on one side and the clouds on the other, and to 



ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 86 

the west the cloud bank continued to follow the 
lines, a gloriously beautiful panorama. The 
cloud bank stayed nearly the same the two hours 
we were up. From a distance above or below, 
a cloud is just a big, soft, quiet cusliion of cotton 
flufip, but near to it is a seething, irregular, toss- 
ing, furious jumble of mist. 

We saw a few Boches, far behind their lines. 
An hour after we were back, they said that Luf- 
bery had just brought down another machine, his 
15th, in flames. He was using a new machine 
and the gun was not properly regulated — seven 
balls were in each blade of the propeller, yet it 
held together and brought him home. I was 
down at the Lafayette hangars talking to Bill 
Thaw, and here comes the mighty man in a hurry 
from reporting his flight. With fire in his eye 
he got in his old machine and off again for the 
lines. At noon he had brought down another, 
which hasn't yet been officially homologue, but is 
none the less sure for that. Thaw brought down 
one this morning. They are doing well, these 
men of the American Escadrille — still French, 
however, though shortly to be transferred, we 
hear. 



86 ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 

May your Xmas be a happy one, and the new 
year and those to follow bring you ever better 
fortune than the last one. 

Stuart. 



XXI 

Chalons-sur-Marne. 

December 8, 1917. 

Dear * ; 

I got the Sunday Star a few days ago and 

there was that same old picture and 

staring me in the face ! A very nice write-up, I 
thought it. What a bunch of big-wigs they did 
gather together I We packed up bag and bag- 
gage yesterday and flew off to a new place, and 
here we are waiting for the baggage to catch up. 
I have grave fears that there may be some fight- 
ing one of these days, and if so, I think it will be 
about time for me to get out of this war. Cheery 
oh! 

Stuaet. 

* One of his school friends. 



87 



XXII 

Chaloxs sue ^Maexe. 
December 8, 1917. 
Yesterday we were awakened at 6 and told 
that we were going to move out, bag and bag- 
gage at 2. So now as new barracks were not 
ready we came down here last night and have 
been seeing the sights of the town since. It is 
full of Americans, ambulances, doctors, Y. M. 
C. A. workers, ever}i:hing but fighting men which 
I trust we'll see before long. 

Stuaet. 



8C 



THE FIXAL COMBAT 

On December 12, while on patrol, Stuart 
Walcott met a German biplane carrying two 
men. Three cable reports agree that he shot 
down and destroyed this machine about two and 
a half miles within the German lines. He then 
started back for the French lines and was over- 
taken by four Albatross German planes. He 
was overcome and his machine went down in a 
nose dive withiD the German lines, it being as- 
sumed that either he was shot or his machine 
disabled. 

There was still a hope that he might have 
escaped death. Inquiries were at once instituted 
through the American Red Cross and the Inter- 
national Red Cross, with the result that on Janu- 
ary 7 a cable came from the International Red 
Cross stating that it was reported in Germany 
that S. Walcott was brought down during the 
afternoon of December 12 near Saint Souplet, 
and that he was killed bv the fall. 



STUART WALCOTT 

[A biographical note written by his father.] 

Benjamin Stuart Walcott was sturdy and 
self-reliant as a boy and very early developed 
strong personal initiative, good sense and cour- 
age. I find in my notebook under an entry of 
July 6, 1905, a few days before Stuart's ninth 
birthday, that with him and his brother Sidney 
I had measured a section of over 10,000 feet in 
thickness of rock with dip compass and rod in 
northern Montana, and that that night we slept 
out on the Continental Divide after a sandwich 
apiece for supper. On July 16, "Went up the 
Gordon Creek with Stuart and cut a few trees 
out of the trail." And on the next day, "Stuart 
asisted me in collecting fossils from the Middle 
Cambrian Rocks." 

In 1906 Stuart helped in gathering Cambrian 
fossils in central Montana, and in recognition of 
his effective work one of the new species of shells 
was named after him, Micromitra (Paterina) 
stuarti. 

90 



ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 91 

He also assisted in British Columbia in geo- 
logical work during the sununer of 1907, and in 
1908, when twelve years old, he was placed with 
one packer in charge of a pack train operating in 
what is now the Glacier Park, Montana, and in 
southern British Columbia. On this trip one 
morning I heard faint rifle shots, and upon over- 
taking the pack train found Stuart shooting 
away with a 22 gauge rifle at a grizzly bear, which 
was some distance down the slope below the trail. 
On reminding him of the danger, he said he 
wanted to drive the bear away to prevent a stam- 
pede of the animals. 

Both at home and in school his actions were 
largely influenced by a determination first to 
know what was the right thing to do, and guided 
by this habit, when it looked as though the United 
States would enter the European War, he de- 
cided that it was his duty to take part in it. 
When the Lusitania was sunk he felt strongly 
that the United States should take a positive 
stand in favor of the freedom of the seas, that the 
rights of Americans should be protected even if 
it meant war, and he was ready to fight for it. 

In common with the majority of the youth of 
America, he had the feeling that it was a patriotic 



92 ABOVE THE FRENCH LINES 

duty and privilege to offer personal service to the 
Nation when its ideals and motives were assailed 
by a foreign foe. He first offered his services to 
the Signal Corps and received a temporary ap- 
pointment. Reahzing that training as an expert 
aviator could be more quickly obtained in France 
than in this country, he went to France and en- 
listed in the French Army with the expectation 
of being transferred later to the American 
forces. This would have been done prior to his 
being shot down within the German lines on De- 
cember 12, had he not been awaiting action by 
the United States Aviation Service in France in 
examining and arranging for the transfer of the 
American aviators in the French Army to the 
service of the United States. 

Throughout his life the dominating thought 
was to be of positive service wherever he might 
be placed. At the same time he was thoroughly 
a boy and enjoyed a frolic and fun as much as 
any one of his companions. 

He prepared for college at the Taft School, 
expecting to enter Yale, and passed the exami- 
nations for that university before he was sixteen. 
Upon further consideration he selected Prince- 
ton, largely because of the preceptorial method 



ABOA^E THE FRENXH LINES 93 

of training, and was a senior when he decided to 
enter the service of his country. 

Stuart was an unusually well balanced boy and 
youth ; his moral convictions were sound, definite, 
and expressed by action rather than words. 

Chailles D. Walcott. 



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